Sources:

• http://www.npr.org/2011/10/26/141659992/occupy-wall-streets-most-unlikely-ally-the-pope
• http://www.npr.org/2011/10/22/141619672/finding-common-ground-between-two-movements
• http://www.npr.org/2011/10/19/141521155/how-are-business-impacted-by-occupy-wall-street
• http://www.npr.org/2011/10/17/141411367/g-20-countries-meet
• http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/10/05/141048592/occupy-wall-street-where-everybody-has-a-say-in-everything
• http://www.npr.org/2011/10/27/141733449/protests-pick-up-steam-will-obama-get-burned
• http://www.npr.org/2011/10/28/141787999/occupy-violence-reignites-criticism-of-oakland-police
• http://www.npr.org/2011/10/21/141578814/the-last-word-in-business
• http://www.npr.org/2011/10/30/141768287/nprs-hard-times-series-reporters-begin-journey
• http://www.npr.org/2011/10/17/141427331/op-ed-occupy-wall-street-protesters-goals
• http://www.npr.org/2011/10/27/141748016/cities-vary-widely-in-response-to-occupy-camps
• http://www.npr.org/2011/10/27/141761857/mayor-on-shutting-down-occupy-atlanta

Here is my recent work on this piece, I hope you enjoy listening to it and reading about my process. There are many aspects that I would like to explore in the future but these are my findings thus far.

An Exploration of Algorithmic Composition via the Fibonacci Sequence (.pdf)
A brief exploration of the history and theory behind algorithmic music composition and a discussion of the details of my own composition where I utilized the Fibonacci sequence.

An Exploration of Algorithmic Composition: Technical Details (.pdf)
In this short paper I discuss the various technologies I have used in the development of this piece and how each of these tools helped with the development of the composition.

When I write my final paper for this project, i’ll be sure to include all of the nitty-gritty. For now, try some of these jams with your peanut butter:

An algorithmically generated riff based on the Fibonacci numbers. Mapped to the pitch set with missing semitones that are multiples of 21.

Sort of atonal jam
Listen:

An algorithmically generated riff based on the Fibonacci numbers. Then mapped to the blues scale pitch set.

Blues Jam
Listen:

As most of you probably know, this is the band I have been waiting to work with for some time. I’ve been waiting to find people who are passionate about the same types of things in music that I am. In general, I’d say [ ]‘s most basic criteria for a song is one that requires thought to listen to, and I hope that is apparent from the demo.

Here is one of our songs, entitled “Funk Train”:

All songs can be downloaded and heard at aptronymband.com

Unfortunately we didn’t consider the characters that Google excludes from searches when we came up with the name, so hopefully just about everywhere you will see “[ ]“, you will also see “aptronymband.com“.

It was hard for us to release these songs in their current state because we would like them to be more perfect, but it helped to remind ourselves often that this is just a [ demo ]. I hope you enjoy the songs as much as we do, you can listen to them and download them for free at: aptronymband.com.

See you at the shows, sign up for updates on aptronymband.com if you are interested.

This semester, I am working with Prof. Curtis Bahn in a much greater capacity, and will be hopefully be developing this idea into the composition that I have always wanted it to be.

I am taking an Independent Study with Bahn in “Algorithmic Music Composition Theory”, as well as one of his classes, “Advanced Computer Music”. I will be working on the same project for both courses, but in much different capacities. My project proposal is below, and can be found here in pdf format.

Objective

To build a more complex composition based upon my previous “Fibbass” sketch by looking at many aspects in greater detail.

Goals

• Study the history/theory of computer-aided music and algorithmic compositions (Independent Study)
  • Study the work done in the intersection of musical composition and mathematical structures
  • Using myself as a case study, utilize this knowledge to build upon my compositional ideas
  • Develop theories and a plan for a more complex composition based my previous “Fibbass” sketch
• Actually implement this composition on the computer (Advanced Computer Music)
  • Utilize the computer to generate various alternatives to rapidly build the composition
  • Develop/utilize more complex timbres and sound effects
• Document all work in a comprehensive paper

Details

Listed above there are two major categories, each of which I hope to spend equal time on throughout the course of the semester. The first focuses on the history and theory behind the composition, while the second focuses more on the composition itself and the implementation of the piece.

If you are interested in my process, please feel free to read my final report below, or email me.

Original Objective

To write a bass guitar composition and design algorithmically determined accompaniments, all based on the Fibonacci sequence.

Process

My process in developing this project was very linear due to my limited time frame. In the beginning of the semester, I set up a list of goals to accomplish, and mapped them evenly across the remainder of the semester. Initially all of my goals were technical, proof of concept pieces, which became the individual components that I would later combine into a larger signal-flow. Some of these components took more time to implement than I had anticipated and some took much less, so I was able to complete them all on time. After completing any one of these smaller components, I hardly ever went back to revise or rewrite it. For example, I spent approximately an hour choosing the percussive sounds that I used in the piece, and never looked back after that. I feel that my ability to perform the piece successfully is partly due to this lack of perfection, as I would have never had enough time to finish writing the composition, let alone practice playing it, if I had attempted to make every aspect perfect.

As far as the composition itself, I did not spend that much time on the general structure, nor on any other aspect of it. For the central melody, I arbitrarily chose a center (pitch), and used successive Fibonacci numbers to determine how many semitones will be between the current note, and the next note. I alternate the direction of the pitch, i.e. up 1 semitone, down 1 semitone, up 2, down 3, up 5, down 8, etc. The amount of quarter-note rests between each note is also based on this “global” Fibonacci number. This ended up not sounding too bad at all.

To integrate this in to Max/MSP, I basically just fed the MIDI into Max, and devised algorithms to keep track of this global Fibonacci number based on the notes that I am playing. All percussion is generated based on this number, and other randomly generated numbers. The number sometimes denotes how many percussive notes to play, how long to wait between them, etc.

Final Result

Although I didn’t get to accomplish some of my original goals, I am satisfied with the way this project turned out after a semester’s work. My plan was to get my hands dirty with this concept, and to see what I could make of it. The result is a fairly polished, proof of concept, of what I hope to become a much bigger composition next semester.

This semester allowed me to work out many of the technical issues that I had considered while planning this project such as exactly how the signal flow would occur during the performance. I was also able to experiment briefly with many of the aspects that I hope to exploit further next semester, including audio effects, and melody generation within Max/MSP. Because of my limited amount of time and the vast amount of elements involved in this project, I was only able to spend a short amount of time on each element. In the future, I would like to spend much more time choosing and manipulating the elements of this project, to make sure that every aspect is intentional.

The hardest part for me, due to my lack of formal music training, is the actual composition. I have been discussing with many classically trained musicians and music professors (Prof. Curtis Bahn, Prof. Scott McCoy, Garrett Smelcer, Garrett Sullivan) over the past semester various techniques and concepts relating to this project, and am looking forward to my elaboration of these ideas in the future.

Now that I have a general concept, and ideas of how to implement various techniques, next semester I plan on taking this project further, and hopefully expanding it into what I originally hoped it would be.

“Coagulate”

Download:
.mp3 (256 VBR)
Apple Lossless .m4a

“Splinter”

Download:
.mp3
Apple Lossless (.m4a)
(Right-click and Save as…)

]]> http://colin-sullivan.com/main/2009/splinter/feed/ 0 http://colin-sullivan.com/main/2008/video-project-2/ http://colin-sullivan.com/main/2008/video-project-2/#comments Mon, 15 Dec 2008 04:43:22 +0000 Colin http://blog.colin-sullivan.com/?p=139 This is a video that I made for school this semester for Intermediate Video class.  I wouldn't say that it is polished by any means, but I was proud to submit it (which is more than I can say for my final project for that same class).  If I remember correctly the assignment was to build a climax using few shots.